“We have a team of meteorologists who track the weather for us,” utility spokeswoman Brandi Ehlers said. “They are predicting a category three for us, which means to expect pretty large-scale outages.”

Ehlers said managers were prepared for wind gusts in the 70 mph range in the foothills and Sierra Nevada.

In Auburn, Sierra Division Chief Tim Lewis was assembling a team of outage specialists to manage potential problems in a six-county area, including Placer, El Dorado and Nevada counties.

“With a high wind event, we look at debris, trees and limbs falling on power lines,” Lewis said. “That’s probably our biggest concern, the trees.”

Officials said crews and equipment were being staged in various areas to cut response time to remote areas.

Lewis said the utility relies on calls from customers to help direct officials to rural and mountain outages.

The utility emergency operations room is expected to be staffed and running until Saturday morning.

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